Simply Chinese: Recipes from a Chinese Home Kitchen

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Simplified characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write contemporary Chinese languages, along with traditional characters. Their development during the 20th century was part of an initiative by the People's Republic of China to promote literacy, and their use in ordinary circumstances on the mainland has been encouraged by the Chinese government since the 1950s. [1] They are the official forms used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, while traditional characters are officially used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Written Chinese language contains more than 50,000 characters, and more and more are added all the time.

The traditional character looks similar to saloon doors, with the simplified character looking somewhat like a doorframe. But what’s the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese? Which is more common? Where in the world are the two used?Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification, eventually arriving at the same set of simplified characters as mainland China. [14] Other characters in this category include 食 (shí) — food (simplified as 饣) and 金 (jīn) — metal/money (simplified as 钅): Which should you learn? Traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese? Taiwan, Hong Kong, and many overseas Chinese communities use traditional Chinese writing. China and Singapore use the simplified Chinese writing system. Chia, Shih Yar 谢世涯. Xīnjiāpō yǔ zhōngguó tiáozhěng jiǎntǐzì de píng zhì 新加坡与中国调整简体字的评骘[ A Comparative Study of the Revision of Simplified Chinese Characters Proposed by Singapore and China]. Paper presented at The International Conference on Culture of Chinese Character. Convened by Beijing Normal University and Liaoning People Publishing House. Dandong, Liaoning, China. 9-11 Nov 1998 (in Chinese) – via huayuqiao.org. Public universities such as the Linguistics and Asian Languages Department of the University of the Philippines use simplified characters in their teaching materials. On the other hand, private schools such as Chiang Kai Shek College and Saint Jude Catholic School remain major proponents of the usage of traditional characters. Some private universities, such as the Ateneo de Manila University, also use simplified characters.

Pinyin will help you a lot when learning Chinese because it means you can start reading without learning Chinese characters. The 6 Types of Chinese Characters You can find this radical in almost every character that has something to do with water, for example: 海 ( hǎi, “sea”) or 汁 ( zhī, “juice”). In this case, the knowledge of the pronunciation of 十 ( shí, “ten”) comes in handy, as 汁 ( zhī, “juice”) sounds similar. Methodology [ edit ] Structural simplification of characters All characters simplified this way are enumerated in Charts 1 and 2 of the 1986 Complete List of Simplified Characters [ zh] (hereafter the Complete List). Chart 1 lists all 350 characters that are used by themselves, and can never serve as 'simplified character components'. Chart 2 lists 132 characters that are used by themselves as well as utilized as simplified character components to further derive other simplified characters. Chart 2 also lists 14 'components' or 'radicals' that cannot be used by themselves, but can be generalized for derivation of more complex characters. Derivation based on simplified character components Chart 3 lists 1,753 characters which are simplified based on the same simplification principles used for character components and radicals in Chart 2. This list is non-exhaustive, so if a character is not already found in Charts 1–3, but can be simplified in accordance with Chart 2, the character should be simplified. Elimination of variants of the same character Series One Organization List of Variant Characters [ zh] accounts for some of the orthography differences in mainland China versus in Hong Kong and Taiwan. These are not simplifications of character structures, but rather reduction in number of total standard characters. For each set of variant characters that share the identical pronunciation and meaning, one character (usually the simplest in form) is elevated to the standard character set, and the rest are obsoleted. After rounds of revisions, by 1993, some 1,027 variant characters have been declared obsolete by this list. Amongst the chosen variants, those that appear in the 1986 Complete List are also simplified in character structure accordingly. Adoption of new standardized character forms New standardized character forms originated from the 1965 Characters for Publishing list containing 6,196 characters. These tend to be vulgar variant forms for most of its characters. The 1988 List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese (hereafter Common Modern Characters) contains 7,000 characters, and replaces the 1965 list. Since the new forms take vulgar variants, many characters now appear slightly simpler compared to old forms, and as such are often mistaken as being structurally simplified. Structural simplification of characters [ edit ] Pressing Esc on the Chinese keyboard layout will toggle the mouse input between virtual QWERTY keyboard and virtual Chinese keyboard. The key will also turn on/off your keyboard input conversion. Pressing Esc on your keyboard has the same function. Instructions for using the Cangjie InputThese characters were simplified based on shorthand versions of characters and may be completely different from their traditional counterparts. For example, the character 水 ( shuǐ) – “water” changes to a form of radical: 氵and keeps its meaning.

There is no restriction on the use of traditional characters in mass media, and television programs, books, magazines and music imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan are widely available, almost always using traditional characters. Many shop signs and menus in hawker centres and coffee shops continue to be written with traditional characters. [18]Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters.